1. Design Analysis of Plate Heat Exchangers
P M V Subbarao
Professor
Mechanical Engineering Department
I I T Delhi
Understadning of Highly Specialized Design Features……

3. EFFECTIVE TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCE

7. Plates Inlet / outlet Media 2 Inlet / outlet Media 1 Distribution area
Fully supported gasket groove
Heat transfer area
Distribution area
Inlet / outlet Media 2
Inlet / outlet Media 1
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9. Mean Channel Flow Gap
Flow channel is the conduit formed by two adjacent plates between the gaskets.
Despite the complex flow area created by Chevron plates, the mean flow channel gap b, can be identified as
where p is the plate pitch or the outside depth of the corrugated plate and t is the plate thickness, b is also the thickness of a fully compressed gasket, as the plate corrugations are in metallic contact.
Plate pitch should not be confused with the corrugation pitch.

10. Mean flow channel gap b is required for calculation of the mass velocity and Reynolds number and is therefore a very important value that is usually not specified by the manufacturer.
If not known or for existing units, the plate pitch can be determined from the compressed plate pack (between the head plates) ,Lc which is usually specified on drawings. Then p is determined as :
where Nt is the total number of plates.

11. Channel Flow Area One channel flow area is given by Ax:
where Lw is the effective plate width.
The channel equivalent diameter De is given by:

12. where
Then

13. Heat Transfer Coefficient
With plate heat exchangers, heat transfer is enhanced.
The heat transfer enhancement will strongly depend on the Chevron inclination angle b, relative to flow direction,
Both the heat transfer and the friction factor increase with b.
On the other hand, the performance of a Chevron plate will also depend upon the surface enlargement factor f, corrugation profile, gap b.
In spite of extensive research on plate heat exchangers, generalized correlations for heat transfer and friction factor are not available.

14. Flow Reynolds Numbers
The transition to turbulence occurs at low Reynolds numbers and, as a result, the gasketed-plate heat exchangers give high heat transfer coefficients.
The Reynolds number, Re, based on channel mass velocity and the equivalent diameter,De , of the channel is defined as:
where Ncp is the number of channel per pass and is obtained from
where Nt is the total number of plates and Np is the number of passes.